this is how it ends
by faith-and-serenity
Summary: because he can't burn up a sun to say goodbye this time - post tatm


_he thinks he sees her sometimes._

A flash of red around a street corner, his hand in hers, bright against the grey of the New York snow. It's never her though, the faces of bemused red heads have merged into one; he's mastered the art of saying "sorry, I thought you were someone else."

He gets flashes of her life sometimes, like strobe lights flashing across the fuzzy grey of a broken television, just occasionally something will come his way, the mention of a name, a picture, the memories of them seared into his conscience like the brand on the back of a lamb.

He's quite like a lamb, a sacrificial one, leading himself to the altar, sacrificing himself again and again for a glimpse, a taste of the girl who waited.

It would be easier, he muses, if River didn't pop in and out, sometimes the right River, sometimes the wrong River. Sometimes it's a River who doesn't know who her parents are; sometimes it's a River who doesn't know what happens to them. Sometimes it's a River he doesn't recognise; sometimes it's a River who reminds him so much of Amy that his throat gets scratchy and his eyes sting.

He sometimes tortures himself deliberately, reading the last page over and over again, smoothing out the creases from where it's been folded in his breast pocket, next to his hearts.

He never went to see Brian, he didn't have the courage, didn't think he could hold it together. He knows River went, knows that he knows, but he didn't think that he could face the man after breaking his promise, breaking his heart.

_not them, never them. _

He misses them so much it aches, like there's a yawning hole in his chest, like someone has plunged in a hand and ripped out his heart, a bloody, gaping cavity that yearns to be filled, but nothing can ever replace your own heart. Anyone new he lets in is like a transplant, if you take the drugs, and are careful, don't push it too far, it can almost feel like your own. But it's not, it's not yours and it never will be.

He'll never again be anybody's raggedy man; he'll never again have his Ponds. The girl who waited can wait no more, because he can never go back for her, can never again surprise her on her wedding anniversary with flowers.

The only flowers he can give his Ponds are the ones he leaves at their grave.

He almost can't bear to think about the five years she spent on her own, with neither him nor Rory; he wants to believe that she embraces life after Rory, living it with the burning vivacity that had always been his favourite thing about her; but he finds it hard to be positive when he thinks about his Amy.

He sees her in the way the sun sends red tinted rainbows off the autumn leaves, sees her in the way the stars light up the sunflowers in summer; he sees Rory in the way the soldiers march in front of Buckingham Palace, unwavering loyalty and love.

Sometimes he thinks he's getting over it, moving on, and then he'll see a little kid wearing a pirate's hat, and he won't be able to swallow. He made it as far as the entrance to the Van Gough exhibition at the National Gallery before he had to turn away and blink as fast as he could, and even then it wasn't fast enough.

He's still the curator, the guardian, the lone defender of the earth, but neither of his hearts are really in it now that neither of the girls he did it for exist there anymore.

He wishes every day for one last goodbye, for one hologram projection with which he could look Amelia Pond in the eye one last time, one hologram projection for a proper goodbye with the best friend he's ever had, and the only man who's worthy of her.

But he can't do it, he can't burn up a sun to say goodbye this time.

He could do it though, he could say goodbye, he could burn up New York, and sometimes he thinks it's worth it, worth sacrificing one city for one goodbye.

But he's had his first and only goodbye from her.

Her and him and Rory, they were a team, each one of them a component keeping them ticking, the power of three, together combined they were stronger than any one on their own.

But the two together would always fare better than the one left on his own.

The look on her face as she whirled around to face him, the look of terror, the sadness, that one word wrenched from her lips, the way his heart shattered as she was sucked from his view, they will forever be burnt into him, tattooed onto his skin, onto his heart, his brain.

Amy will be permanently inked onto his psyche.

Her smell, her taste, the way she hugged, the look on her face when Rory did something exasperating, the way she'd tell him off when she didn't agree with what he was doing. The way she waved the gun around in Mercy, the way she fought to save the whale, her compassion, her beauty, her humanity.

The way she sat on a suitcase and waited.

She was his girl who waited, his Pond, the first face this face had seen. He was her raggedy man, her Doctor, the one who saved her over and over again.

But ultimately, she was the one who had saved him.

They had written their story across the stars, across time and space. Amy Pond, the girl who waited, she had travelled farther and wider than her childhood dreams could ever have imagined.

And as much as he hates endings, he hates reruns even more.

So he needs to shut the book, put a couple of stitches in his chest, stop dwelling on the past, and find a world to save.

_live well, love Rory_

_this is the story of Amelia Pond_

_and this is how it ends_

_bye bye Ponds._


End file.
